Tales from the Old Republic - Uncharted Settlements

Hey folks, we’ve got a rather short entry of TFOR this week because technical issues and lag have really been interfering with the game and I hope they’ll be addressed soon.
After the surprise attack on Darth Vengean’s flagship by Admiral Monk - one of the final targets of the Republic War Trust - I was sent down to the noxious planet Quesh where an Imperial mining operation was well underway. Admiral Monk was hiding out deep inside a Republic base and after fighting my way past several squads of troops, I found the Republic officer who revealed himself to be a deep cover operative for my mentor, Darth Baras. Angered that Baras felt the need to eliminate him despite maintaining his cover, Monk had his entourage attack me, cursing my Master’s name. Forced to follow orders, I killed Monk and his men and feeling confused by this strange turn of events, I traveled back to my ship and reported in.

After questioning Baras’ actions, he did admit that he set Darth Vengean up in order to make him lose face with the Dark Council. Wanting to know why he was willing to put me - a Sith Lord no less - in danger in order to advance his own position, Baras suggested I practice patience as he doesn’t want to reveal his hand just yet. Tabling the issue for now, Baras’ next task would see me tracking down a Jedi named Xerender who is currently leading search operations on the planet Hoth in order to track down a secret weapon.

Hoth is a very different place from when it was first shown in The Empire Strikes Back. Instead of being a lonely ball of ice, pirates have established several bases on the planet in order to salvage the wrecks of hundreds of Republic and Imperial ships that have crashed on the surface following a massive skirmish. Apart from credit hungry pirates, I would also have to contend with the Talz - Hoth’s territorial warriors. I was supposed to meet my Imperial contact and get a lead on Xerender’s location, but his second and third in command reported that he had gone missing following an excursion out into the snowy wastes in order to track the Jedi.

I was pointed in the direction of the Imperial commander’s last known location and found his corpse in a cell deep in a pirate base and on his person were the coordinates for a hidden camp situated not too far away. Getting there was tricky, as I had to fight my way through a large herd of Wampas, the ferocious, bear-like creatures that attacked Luke Skywalker during a patrol thousands of years later. When I reached the Republic camp, I was surprised to see that the entire area was littered with the corpses of soldiers and Talz. The only one left alive was a Jedi padawan named Sewlor who looked terrified as he frantically searched about, claiming to sense the presence of a hunter. Trying to make sense of the situation, Jedi Sewlor angrily told the tale of how Xerender had abandoned him to search for the hidden weapon and ever since, he and the Republic troops were being taken out one by one by a Talz named Broonmark.

At this point, Sewlor was done talking and decided to spend his last moments fighting me rather than wait to be killed by Broonmark. After a short fight that weakened the young man, Broonmark suddenly appeared behind him and snapped the Jedi’s neck. The beast turned to me and warned that I’d get the same if I didn’t leave immediately. Looking for clarification, Broonmark indicated that he was rivals with the tribe Xerender had allied with when he reached the planet. I suggested an alliance between myself and the hunter, but he staunchly refused and demanded I stay out of his way and not interfere. Before leaving, Broomark told me that the weapon Xerender was looking for wasn’t a piece of technology, but in fact a Jedi Master named Wylet. Returning to the Imperial base, I met up with Baras who was in the process of murdering a hapless officer for not following up with information concerning the Jedi’s whereabouts. When I told Baras that Xerender was seeking out Master Wylet, the Sith lord’s mood darkened. Turns out, there was some history between himself and the Jedi Master as they faced one another in battle years before. Baras ultimately lost and was forced to flee, but to add insult to injury Wylet took Baras’ lightsaber as his own. Seeing this as an opportunity for revenge, Baras tasked me with hunting down Jedi Master Wylet and retrieve the lightsaber.

Between Baras’ failure to have his own master murdered and losing his lightsaber to a Jedi, I can’t help but notice that the Sith Lord is beginning to lose his luster and to me, seems almost ripe for the picking. The only way I can truly ascend as a Sith Lord is by confronting my Master in battle and defeat him. I’ve certainly been seeing the hooks of this potential encounter and now that he’s got me running errands to cover up his failures, I can say that I’m looking forward to taking him down and prove that I am stronger with the Dark Side than he. But that will have to wait for now as the quest for Baras’ lightsaber continues next week (providing that the technical problems have been properly taken care of by then).

Allen

Librarian by day, Darkstation review editor by night. I've been playing video games since the days of the Commodore 64 and I have no interest in stopping now that I've made it this far.

Tales from the Old Republic - Backstabber Edition

Tales from the Old Republic - What Have I Done?

Of the sixty plus hours I’ve spent with The Old Republic, the handful of hours that make up this week’s TFOR were certainly the most mind blowing for me. And it couldn’t have come at a better time! It wasn’t long ago I was thinking that the story was beginning to drag. This edition also shows that BioWare’s decision to voice this MMO has paid off, because certain sequences in the game wouldn’t have the same emotional resonance if the game relied on speech bubbles.